He called out the corporation executive for not paying his fair share.

He attacked GOP tax cuts that spare the rich and benefit millionaires.

He advocated wealth redistribution from greedy corporations to health insurance and public works projects.

He described himself as progressive, while his detractors accused him of being a communist.

He adopted slogans like Forward and Change. He wanted to transform America through what he called fundamental change.

He was skeptical of preachers and their effect on God-and-gun clinging Americans, and saw the Catholic Church as an obstacle to his vision for the state. He argued that Christians should support his ideas and enthusiastically sought the support of the social justice Religious Left. Moreover, many people were unclear about his personal religious beliefs, including whether he was a Christian.

Who is this man?

If you answered Barack Obama, youre only half right. The answer is Frank Marshall Davis, Hawaii mentor to a young Barack Obama, and Communist Party member 47544.

Davis was introduced to a nine-year-old Obama in the fall of 1970 by Obamas grandfather, Stanley Dunham, who was seeking a black-male role model or father figure to mentor his grandson. He and the young Obama met many times throughout the 1970s, often for hours at a time late into evenings. Obama refers to Davis literally dozens of times in every part of his bestselling memoirs, Dreams from My Father.

Long ignored, Davis is the subject of my new bookand Catholics should pay attention, given that Davis had some choice words for them and their church. Not unlike the young man he mentored, Barack Obama, Davis saw the Catholic Church as an obstacle to his vision for the state.

Frank Marshall Daviss vision was a very far-left one. He pushed the federal government to adopt socialist policies, with more and more power concentrated in Washington. He wanted the United States to go the direction of the Soviet Union. And Davis understood that the one institution standing in the way most vehemently was the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic hierarchy, he sneered, had launched a holy war against communism.

Indeed it hadand deservedly so. Nothing anywhere in the world persecuted the religiousand people generallyquite like communism. The Church correctly saw Soviet communism as truly, genuinely evil. But Frank Marshall Davis fully disagreed, and he would target the Church as an obstacle to his plans to fundamentally change America.

And so, Davis targeted the Church in commentaries he wrote for the Chicago Star, the Communist Party publication of which he was the founding editor-in-chief from 1946-48.

In one commentary, a July 20, 1946 piece titled, A-Bombs for Russia, Davis began by expressing his admiration for Stalins Russia: I salute the Soviet Union, stated Davis. I admire Russia for wiping out an economic system which permitted a handful of rich to exploit and beat gold from the millions of plain people . As one who believes in freedom and democracy for all, I honor the Red nation.

Yet, as Davis hailed Joe Stalins state for its alleged freedom and democracy, there was something else he didnt admire: It was the Big Money Boys and so-called prostitute press [that] brazenly solicits public hate for [the Soviet Union]. Among those that Davis listed as hate evangelists was Cardinal Francis Spellman, who, by Daviss estimation, longed to knock out Russia by bombing it to the Stone Age.

Said Davis: Weve got to make the plain people realize that those hate evangelists preaching war against Russia are their enemies, and that peace, freedom and democracy can come only from forcing official America to work in harmony with the Soviet Union.

Who was obstructing that peace? Davis blamed Harry Truman, the Marshall Plan, Wall Street, big business, capitalism, the press, and the likes of Cardinal Spellman and the Catholic Church. Not only were these sources hate evangelists, according to Frank Marshall Davis, but they were the new Pontius Pilates.

A painful illustration of this thinking was a September 29, 1949 column that Davis wrote for the Honolulu Record, the Communist Party publication for Hawaii, which he wrote for from 1949-57. Titled, Challenge to the Church, Davis imagined Judgment Day, where anti-communist Christians would be called to account for their transgressions: On your Judgment Day, when the Lord will ask you for an account of your stewardship, will your answer be, Lord I was too busy Redbaiting?

And the Catholic Church especially deserved a good scourging. The Christian churches, and the Catholic church in particular, preached Barack Obamas mentor, are making a grievous error in their shortsighted belief that the major enemy of Christianity is Communism.

Not a communist in Moscow would have agreed with Frank Marshall Davis, and the late Lenin would have laughed him out of the countryor thanked him for his efforts.

Not only was Soviet Russia not anti-religious, said Davis, but it had saved the world from Hitlers anti-Christian paganism. Really, Christians worldwide should pay homage to Stalin. Instead, they were blinded by their anti-communist bigotry.

Here, as in so many of these cases, Davis, not unlike Barack Obama, was a man of the far left making appeals to the social justice Religious Left for support, especially liberal Protestants.

And when the Catholic Church did not accommodate his plans and policies for the state, Frank Marshall Davis, like Barack Obama, simply told the Church that it was wrong and didnt bend. Imagine that.

That said, Id like to conclude with two final examples on Davis and the Church, including, ironically, one where Davis actually agreed with the Church, albeit for curious reasons.

Another Catholic target of Davis was Archbishop Stepinac of Yugloslavia. The suffering Stepinac was persecuted in a classic communist show trail, a terrible miscarriage of justice. Frank Marshall Davis, however, portrayed it the other way around, as did the Kremlin and the international communist movement. In a September 1949 article titled, Cold War in Church, written for the Honolulu Record, Davis dismissed Stepinacs persecution as a lie and propaganda. That is, lies and propaganda from Rome, from America, from the West. As always, Frank Marshall Davis took the side of the Soviet Union against the Roman Catholic Church.

There was, however, one instance where Davis surprisingly agreed with the Church. It came in his June 11, 1953 column, where Davis curiously found himself allied with Pope Pius XII, one of the most stalwart anti-communists of the 20th century. The reason? Pius XII opposed the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who had been correctly charged with giving atomic secrets to the Soviets.

Of course, Pius XII opposed the Rosenbergs execution mostly likely because he was loyal to his Churchs teachings against capital punishment. Frank Marshall Davis, however, opposed the Rosenbergs execution because he was loyal to the Kremlin. Thats what it finally took for Frank Marshall Davis to agree with the Catholic Church.

In sum, mentors matter. We all know that. We cant say for certain that Barack Obama got his viewsand intransigenceon the Catholic Church from Frank Marshall Davis. As a scholar, thats something I cant definitively state. But its certainly notable, and perhaps not coincidental, that both men saw the Catholic Church as an obstacle to their vision for the state. What Obamas mentor believed seems to at least merit our interest.

I'm stunned at the amount of Catholics that are voting for Obama as compared to the Protestants that i know. If the Catholics would just stop, we would not even be having the discussion on who will be the next president.

3
posted on 10/12/2012 6:21:08 AM PDT
by bella1
(As it was in the days of Lot.....)

I met with an old friend of mine last week end who claims to be a staunch coservative who told me he had a newsletter from his Catholic Church that told him how Mohammad was a nice guy early in his life and then went bad. He just drove me nuts.

I met with an old friend of mine last week end who claims to be a staunch coservative who told me he had a newsletter from his Catholic Church that told him how Mohammad was a nice guy early in his life and then went bad. He just drove me nuts.

I have commented here several years about what has been happening in the church and have been called a "basher". Libs have taken the church and the various parishes don't seem to notice.

Just like Biden, Pelosi, Kerry, and any given Kennedy, the church believes a bigger welfare check is "WWJD"? They have sold out abortion, homo marriage, and all the rest to get a gubmint check for everyone.

The biggest argument seems to be are they the majority or not? Many here say EXACTLY what you post. The figures stay the same and grow however. One of Obama's biggest supporters is Father Phlager. He was suspended or something like that for a while, but the church welcomed him back with open arms just in time for the next election.

For the life of me I can't figure why the church doesn't preach from the top down that you can't be Catholic and vote Dem. They have smeared our faces in outright rebellion to God, and yet Catholics still vote Dem. Between Obamacare, abortion, homo marriage, taking God from American culture, and on and on, any Catholic should be able to see the Dems are anti God, yet they still vote Dem because Jesus would have given everyone food stamps and Obama phones. What are they teaching in Parishes all over the US?( for that matter, the world?)

Hugo Chavez thinks he's doing the Lord's work. It's in almost every country.

For me, IMO, it's the church's fault. Someone isn't teaching something that I was taught. I don't think Catholics will ever confront the leadership. We will end up with homosexual marriage, abortion, and all the rest that has torn down other denominations because we think we are somehow immune from what others have done. There is so much resistance to what I am saying, someday we will end up with a liberal pope and we won't even know what happened. Just ask someone from an urban parish what they think of abortion, gay marriage, women priests, ect, and you will wonder how they can call themselves Catholic.

I'm stunned at the amount of Catholics that are voting for Obama as compared to the Protestants that i know. If the Catholics would just stop, we would not even be having the discussion on who will be the next president.

A lot of people equate social "giving" programs with being a Christian, so they hop right up on the socialist bandwagon, forgetting the words of Marxist Vladimir Lenin:

"Democracy is indispensable to socialism. The goal of socialism is communism." -V.I. Lenin

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.